Musics in the Shoshone
by SkyRonin
Summary: Two teens see themselves adventuring as fire lookouts in the middle of the Shoshone National Forest. They will uncover mysteries, hike, fight emotional conflicts and on top of it all, fill the forest with a massive collection of music while being jerks like regular teenagers. All of it while the only source of communication is a walkie-talkie with their supervisor.
1. Welcome to the Woods

**Hi everyone.**

**If you came here just out of curiosity then be warned, this was an early "prototype" of a Firewatch FanFic that I thought would be a good continuation (set in modern day) to the original game's story...It is not a good continuation... and I abandoned it due to the lack of ideas on how to keep supporting it and also because of several life events that changed the way on how I saw this story.**

**If you still want to read it then go ahead, I won't stop you. But there is a better version of this story being made.**

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**June 15th, 2019**

It was a rather old bus rolling into a very secluded bus stop in the middle of the Wyoming state. In the bus there were 5 people: the driver, an elder gentleman, a woman on her 30s with a tired look on her face and two teens both using headphones, both with a rather serious and preocupated but yet determined look on their faces. As the bus stopped both teens hopped off and saw the bus moving away until the trees on the area hid that old diesel fed machine. They looked at each other with their camping/hiking backpacks and started to go through a little dirt trail nearby.

One of them was a boy, 18 years old, average height, a little bit large on the shoulders, dark brown hair, wearing Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, and besides his backpack he was carrying a small Bluetooth Marshall speaker. The other teen, also a boy, was slightly shorter, slimmer, also 18 years old, he also had dark brown hair and eyes, unlike his friend he was carrying a guitar case with the brand Ibanez written on the side.

They arrived at a little junction with a small billboard welcoming people to the Shoshone National Forest and showing both a map of the area and some signs with the cares needed to have in mind when hiking. They both took their headphones off, looked at each other and the taller one talked:

"This is it Henry…It starts here."

"I think it is going to be nice here." Said Henry(the smallest of the two).

"I sure hope it is, I hope I am not giving up my summer to go back to California and still have a broken mind and heart."

"It's gonna be fine…"

They took another dirt trail that went deeper into the Shoshone, they hiked the entire day, didn't talk much, at the last light of the day they setted up camp for the night.

"Hey Sebastian" said Henry "Aren't you gonna take those sunglasses off? I mean it is almost night time."

"Why? At least they hide my ignorance." Replied the tallest of the boys

"C'mon stop being an asshole and take those things off your face! The only ignorance you have is thinking a pair of black lenses can take away the pain that was caused by events uncontrollable by you."

Sebastian annoyed by the comment but deep inside knowing it was the truth took the sunglasses and revealed a pair of blue eyes. There was a mix of feelings in those eyes, they looked angry, determined and annoyed due to the recent comment.

-Let's just get this dinner over with, I am tired as hell.

Henry took out some food packages out of his bag; both friends cooked everything using a tiny camping stove and ate it while talking about the things they saw on the way to that forest.

After that they both went to sleep; Henry had some trouble finding a good position to sleep while Sebastian took almost two hours to fall asleep still thinking of the things that made him and his best-friend come to Shoshone all the way from Los Angeles.

He came due to a broken heart(probably one of worst enemies of a man), after more than a year trying to get his high school crush, she had turned into another guy, besides that, he was having a lot of trouble trying to choose a college he actually liked. His friend Henry on the other hand, was rebelling against his parents(one of a teen's typical actions) because they did not want him to apply for the military, and because they were always controlling him. And so, both of them decided to apply for a Summer job as fire lookouts in the Two Forks sector of the Shoshone National Forest. Sebastian fell asleep…

On the next day, the two boys restarted their hike, encountered two elks, found a bee hive that scared the hell out of them and finally at nightfall after crossing between some high bushes they had arrived. In front of them there was a wooden lookout tower that raised into the air about 3 stories high. They climbed the stairs and got inside. After turning on the power by clicking in a red blinking button on the wall they inspected the interior of the tower, it was composed of a bunk bed, a small kitchen composed of a counter with a gas stove and a sink, a desk that also served as a table for two and in the middle of it all a weird table with a round map on it and some sort of built in coordinate reading instruments.

The silence was broken by a woman's voice, "Two Forks pick up". Both of the boys jumped of scare and looked around only to realize it had come from the walkie-talkie resting on it's charger on top of the desk. Sebastian picked up:

"Hum…Hello? Who is this?"

"I am your supervisor Elizabeth, I am stationed in the Thorofare lookout. I suppose you are either Sebastian or Henry right?"

"Yes, we are…I am Sebastian and Henry is also here…"

"Sooooo...What is the thing with you both?"

"What?!"

"I mean it is not very normal to have people your age applying for this job, and usually who applies is trying to run from something or just forget it."

Henry took the walkie-talkie from Sebastian's hand:

-Look, we are two guys who applied for a Summer job so we can have some spare money to use when college starts!

"Ok ok Mr. Angry… I did not mean to piss you off…" replied Elizabeth

"But…let me guess why you are out here." Said Henry with a little ironic grin on his face.

"Ok, seems fair enough." Replied the supervisor with an entertained voice tone.

"So you either ran away from home because you want to prove that you are a rebel girl or…no one can stand you back home which after this brief introduction is not a big surprise."

"Whoa! Hahaha that is definitely the best story about me I have heard in a while" Said the woman behind the walkie-talkie.

"Can we go to sleep now?" Said Henry in an already grumpy voice.

"Before you go let me just warn you." Said Elizabeth "You are two teens, I would thank you both if I don't have to do any call to the emergency services saying that I have two 18 year olds passed out due to alchooholic coma in the middle of nowhere."

"Don't worry, we didn't bring any liquor." Replied Henry while giggling.

"That is a relief for me" said the supervisor "Have a good night now"

"Good night…" Replied both boys at the same time.

The two boys looked at each other for a moment trying to figure out what kind of talk they just had with their so called supervisor.

"She warned us not to get drunk but…She was the one that sounded drunk." Said Sebastian with a confused look on his face.

"I think she was definitely drunk." Henry replied with an amused grin.

They unpacked their things and Henry went straight to bed. Sebastian got out and went to the tower's deck to look at his surroundings, he could not see much with only the light of the moon, then he looked behind his tower and at the distance he could see some very far lights and a sort of a house form, that was probably Elizabeth's tower. After looking once more around him he letted out some muffled words:

"This is for the best. Remember that you can't be affected by this all of your life."

When he went back inside the tower Henry was on the bottom bunk bed and was already sleeping. Sebastian knew that his friend had a lot more ease falling asleep, and he knew that he would still be awake for almost an hour before actually falling asleep, after all, everything of what he was trying to forget gave him insomnia. He lied on the top bed, looked at his phone and opened his Whatsapp still hoping that anything could have changed for better, although deep inside he knew that it was not going to change. He looked at the chat group from his High School friends, he had already gotten out of that chat group by choice of not suffering any longer (because his crush was on that group), but he still had not deleted the chat from his phone. He gave a glimpse at the last message he received from the group before he left: It was about organizing a camping trip.

He turned off his phone and putted it away. Under him he heard Henry already snoring, and after hearing it Sebastian had to let off an amused smile.

After some time sebastian fell asleep.

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**So what did you think of this first chapter? Any thing you want to recommend please DM me or use the comments section.**

**"Why is Henry an 18 year old guy?"- This Henry has nothing to do with the original Firewatch Henry, it just so happened that he shares the name with the original protagonist. This Henry is also based on my best friend which has a Portuguese name very similar to the name Henry.**

**"Where is Delilah? Who is Elizabeth?"- Don't worry everything will be explained later on but you will find Delilah traits in Elizabeth. Also, her name is not based in a real person, it is based on one of my favourite videogame characters, Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite.**

**Hope I have answered your questions, if you still have one feel free to message me.**

**See you in Chapter 2,**


	2. The First Task(Part 1)

**Hi there everyone, your friendly neighbourhood Portuguse is back with the second chapter of Musics in the Shoshone.**

**It took longer than what I expected but I did and this chapter is now published.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

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June 17th, 2019

Henry woke up with a loud bang from inside the tower making him jump out of bed looking at the direction of the noise. He then realised that it had been the door closing with a loud noise and right on the other side of the door there was Sebastian with a guilty look on his face and a mug of coffee on his right hand.

"What the hell man!? Why did you close the door that hard?!"

Sebastian still with the same expression on his face opened the door and replied "Sorry...I didn't realise it was going to make so much noise." He letted out a small laugh and then pointed to the kitchen counter where the coffee maker had it's jar filled with coffee: " I made coffee if you want some."

Henry still confused by all of it asked: " What? Where did you get coffee? Wait...What time is it" He realised that the sun was still in a low position in the sky.

"I found 3 tins of coffee lying inside one of the cabinets of the counter, don't worry their expiration date is only on next January. And once again sorry if I woke you up so early, it's only 6:51 AM, if you want to sleep a bit more then go ahead I'll try to not disturb you again."

"Six fif...Don't tell me that you didn't sleep tonight!"

"I slept...But I woke about half an hour ago,not that I feel the need to sleep...But hey, I have coffee and all the time in the World while on this job, besides, I also have a nice speaker that can blast music, right? Now if you'll excuse me I have to consume some Wyoming oxygen while sipping some cheap coffee."

Henry looked at his friend while he closed the door and went on to the tower's railing to watch the surroundings. Meanwhile he rubbed his face with his hand due to the sleep and looked closely around the tower: The bunk bed was in a corner right in front of the door, next to the bunk there was a shelf with some books (probably left there by previous lookouts) on the opposite side of the shelf there was the table for two with the walkie-talkie charger and a desk lamp, it also seemed that Sebastian had already put his drawing and ideas' notebooks on top of the table; on the last side of the tower there was the kitchen counter with a sink, a stove and a coffee machine, next to it there was an old fire stove; finally on the middle of it all just like they saw the previous night there was the Osborne Fire Finder in the center of the cabin.

Henry approached the coffee machine and filled a mug with that dark brown drink. Suddenly he started to hear music, it came from the outside, Sebastian had taken his Marshal speaker outside and it was at that moment playing some sort of traditional music from what it seemed to be some European country. Upon further listening Henry realised what music it was, he had only heard that music once before at his friend's house but he recognized that Anti-Fascism music that was fully singed in Italian.

**Music: Bella Ciao**

**Singer: Italian people at the beginning of the XX Century; the version Sebastian listens to is from the singer Manu Pilas.**

The shorter of the teens didn't really like that music but it wasn't something he actually refused to listen, he approached the door and opened it further aplifying the sound of the music in his hears.

** Marshal Speaker:**

_O Partigiano_

_Porta mi via_

_O Bella ciao o bella ciao!_

_O Partigiano _

_Porta mi via_

_Que mi sento di morrir!_

Realizing that Sebastian was already starting to dance to the sound of the music Hnery decided to intervene and change the music, the last thing he needed was a broken heart friend dancing to a revolutionary song under the effects of caffeine. " Hey Sebastian!" He had to scream over the loud music.

Sebastian stopped the music and turned to his smaller friend: "Yeah?"

"Can you stop listening to musics that are made for people who hate Mussolini? I mean it's not that I am a fascist but could you put something that we both enjoy"

The blued-eyed teen letted out a smile and replied in German: "Ja Henrich, ich habe etwas gutes zu hören!"

Henry's face turned preocupated once he heard this, there were only three occasions in which Sebastian(knowing how to speak German almost fluently) speaked like this, either it was while playing Battlefield 1 or Battlefield V back home, either when communicating with Germans while he was visiting his cousin who lived in Germany or when he was angry and wanted to hear to a particular rock band, and that band was one that Henry did not like...Rammstein, the German metal band.

"Shit...don't hear those guys c'mon!"

It was already too late, Sebastian had already clicked on the play button of the playlist on his phone.

**Music: Du Hast**

**Band: Rammstein**

From the speaker there was already coming the iconic voice of the band's singer Till Lindemman:

_Du Hast Mich_

_Du Hast Mich Gefragt_

_Du Hast Mich Gefragt_

Henry face palmed himself while his taller friend was already singing at the same time as Till:

_Willst du bis der Tod uns scheidet _

_Treue sein für alle Tage_

_Nein!_

_Nein!_

The brown-eyed teen turn around and closed himself inside the tower trying to cut himself from that music. He started to prepare a slice of bread with butter using the supplies from a card box with "Two Forks" written on the side, a box that was delivered every month to a supply cache in the northern part of their sector. While preparing his breakfast he started to think on how his blue-eyed friend was quite the normal teen but when it came to being angry or sad he was a bit unusual( he listened to every type of music and started to speak every single language he could think of, besides if they were cycling back in California he was the most rutheless person on a bike Henry had ever seen, coming to think of it there was a big proability that one of the reasons Sebastian rided a bicycle every weekend was to realese a week of stress).

The music ended and Sebastian came back inside while Henry had already started his breakfast. Elizabeth's voice came from the walkie-talkie: "Two Forks pick up."

It was Sebastian who answered: " Two Forks here, this is Sebastian speaking, over."

"No need to be so formal big guy, this isn't an airport or the military, just pretend that you are talking face-to-face with me."

"Ok I'm sorry, I'll keep it in mind next time."

"I need a little report if you don't mind, the wind is blowing to the North which makes some sounds from your sector to travel for some distance and end up reaching my tower; so tell me I came outside to check everything and I heard some sort weird noise coming from your sector, it almost sounded like a rhytmic noise."

"Humm, did it sound like a rhytmic percussion?"

"Yes, exactly! Did you hear it too?"

Sebastian looked at his friend who was looking back at him with a mocking grin on his face. Sebastian gave his brown-eyed friend the middle finger and replied to their supervisor: "Well yeah, I did not only hear it but I was also the one who actually played it, I was listening to music outside."

"Whoa, hahahaha! Good way to start the day, hearing some rhytmic percussion right at dawn."

"Well it wasn't exactly rhytmic percussion, I was hearing Rammstein and I didn't really have much need to sleep that's why I am already awake."

" Rammstein? The German rock band? Whoa you must be some heavy music kind of guy then, right?"

"Not exactly, but there are some heavy musics that I listen too, it really just depends if I like them or not, Henry is a more heavy music kind of guy."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot that you were two friends working in Two Forks, is he also awake too or is he a lazy-ass who spends all morning in bed only to wake up at lunch time?"

Henry surprised by the question took the walkie-talkie from Sebastian just like the previous night and replied: " Yeah I'm awake! And that is a very specific comment don't you think? Maybe you have someone at home like that."

The female voice came with an amused tone: "Whoaa ouch, that was quite the presumption! But unfortunately for you I don't have anyone like that, shit I would never want someone like that." The supervisor's voice then became a bit more serious: " Well I have a job for you two today. But first can you spot a giant round device in your tower?"

Sebastian then took the walkie-talkie out of Henry's hand not just to reply to the question but also as a little payback for the two times his friend did that to him.

"Yes, the Osborne Fire Finder, used to help the firefighters locate fires in the woods."

The supervisor replied: " Nice one, do we have a nerd here with us in the woods?"

Sebastian replied to the sarcasm of the lady on the other side if the frequency: "Har...Har...I just do my research before coming to a place like this."

"Well Mr. research and do you know who invented it?"

"William B. Osborne, easy question"

Elizabeth replied: "Neeeeerd!"

"Yeah yeah, go ahead at least I have a reason to call myself smart."

"Oooooh such a smart little boy...Anyways, I need you to go check a Medicine Wheel not too far from your tower, starting about three years back some teens started to vandalize that thing, usually in the summer but I heard that this last winter that rock sculpture had some rocks painted pink, so I would appreciate if you could check on it. After that I needed you to go and check cave 452, there is a metal gate inside that should be locked, but I really need you to go check it, there were some accidents regarding that cave." Her last words were in a more darker voice tone.

Sebastian a bit shook with those last words asked " What accidents Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth in a voice which was quite disturbed replied: " Are you familiar with the big Shoshone fire of '89?"

"Yeah, it had one large front and somehow a second front started to burn sometime later. I heard that some locals in Wyoming started to call it the "Flapjack Fire", but I don't know why did they call it that."

Elizabeth continued to talk: " Well, after they extinguished it in early September, a group of Firefighters was sent to check how was the cave or if someone had taken refuge inside, furhter down the cave they found a corpse of a kid that went by the name of Brian Goodwin.

Henry had recognized the story and asked "Wasn't that the story of the kid that was found dead in a cave and no one knew about his father? I mean i wasn't born in '89 but my parents have told me that story before."

The female supervisor replied" Yes that is the story, the corpse had been there for about three years before being found. After that in 2000 a hiker went missing here in the Thorofare region only for a ranger to find him dead 3 months later inside the same cave. Besides a previous lookout reported two years go that he found the gate open but after a police search inside there was no one; only to be concluded that it was vandalism or whoever went inside either got out or is dead in unreacheable depths of the cave. So please guys, if you don't mind please go and check if the gate is locked."

After hearing it all a slightly scared Sebastian replied: "Yeah sure, just give us a bit more time to get ready and we will be on our way."

Thank very much you two, and by the way it's best if you take some snacks with you, it will probably take you some time and energy to get to both places, specially when you have to climb down to reach the cave entrance."

"Got it we'll let you know when we're on our way over there"

Henry and Sebastian traded scared and concerned looks and it was the smallest of the two that broke the silence: Ho...Ly...Fuck...Where did we get ourselves into? I mean it's just to check if the gate is closed and tell Elizabeth about it but...it gives me the chills to go visit a place where a kid and a lost man died."

"Same here, but it's our job and after that we can relax here; although I feel today won't be the only day she sends us to go check that gate." Replied the taller one.

" True man, True."

The two friends grabbed everything they thought was necessary for that morning's job, the idea of the two dead people in the cave made Sebastian completly forget his sadness and made Henry terrefied, after all who wouldn't be disturbed by visiting a cave in the middle of nowhere knowing that inside there had been deaths already. They refilled their coffee mugs with the remaining coffee drank it and Henry grabbed the walkie-talkie.

"Elizabeth, this Two Forks, we are on our way to the Medicine Wheel."

"Good luck boys, and try not to get attacked by any bears on the way ok?" She letted out a laugh "Don't worry about that, there haven't been reports of bear attacks in Two Forks since the 90s, but I would be careful you never know." Elizabeth letted a movie villain laugh.

The two teens traded looks once again but this time Henry had confused grin on his face while Sebastian had an annoyed look while arching his right eyebrow. They descended the tower's stairs.

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**Author Notes:**

**So did you like it? **

**I felt that my writing has improved a bit since the last chapter but that is also why I am here for, to improve it.**

**Yes, as of this chapter I will write some verses of every music our boys hear besides identifying them and the corresponding band.**

**Any questions or suggestions for improvement just leave them in the comments or DM me.**

**MataP0rcos signing out.**


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